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Salt Spring Island Mussels with Ale-Cream Sauce

Move aside white wine sauce- a new beery sauce is in town… and it happens to go extraordinarily well with sweet and succulent Salt Spring Island mussels. I add garlic, shallots, beer, butter, cream and parsley to the mussels and steam them until they have all opened. Enjoy these mussels with some more beer and a side a crusty bread- you don’t want that cream-ale sauce to go to waste!

Heat the olive oil in a large stock pot over medium high heat. When hot, add the garlic and shallots and cook for 1-2 minutes or until the garlic and shallots have softened.

Add the beer to the pot and let it cook and reduce down for 5 minutes. The beer should reduce by 1/3. Next, add the clean mussels to the pot, cover with a tight-fitting lid and steam for 5 minutes, or until the mussels have all opened up. If there are any mussels that have not opened after cooking, discard them as they are most likely dead and will make you sick.

Add the butter and cream to the sauce along with 3/4 cup of the parsley and stir to combine. Carefully dump the mussels into a large bowl and top with the remaining chopped parsley.